Books with author Mrs. Lang

The first Christians to visit Europe and the British Isles met pagans who told tales of fairies, talking beasts, and other wonderful things. To these marvelous stories, they soon added new ones about the Christian saints. These marvelous legends and exciting true stories of Christian saints and heroes will provide many hours of delightful reading to believers and non-believers alike!

The first Christians to visit Europe and the British Isles met pagans who told tales of fairies, talking beasts, and other wonderful things. To these marvelous stories, they soon added new ones about the Christian saints. These marvelous legends and exciting true stories of Christian saints and heroes will provide many hours of delightful reading to believers and non-believers alike!

The first Christians to visit Europe and the British Isles met pagans who told tales of fairies, talking beasts, and other wonderful things. To these marvelous stories, they soon added new ones about the Christian saints. These marvelous legends and exciting true stories of Christian saints and heroes will provide many hours of delightful reading to believers and non-believers alike!

All the stories about Princes and Princesses in this book are true stories, and were written by Mrs. Lang, out of old books of history. There are some children who make life difficult by saying, first that stories about fairies are true, and that they like fairies; and next that they do not like true stories about real people, who lived long ago. I am quite ready to grant that there really are such things as fairies, because, though I never saw a fairy, any more than I have seen the little animals which lecturers call molecules and ions, still I have seen people who have seen fairies—truthful people. Now I never knew a lecturer who ventured to say that he had seen an ion or a molecule. It is well known, and written in a true book, that the godmother of Joan of Arc had seen fairies, and nobody can suppose that such a good woman would tell her godchild what was not true—for example, that the squire of the parish was in love with a fairy and used to meet her in the moonlight beneath a beautiful tree. In fact, if we did not believe in fairy stories, who would care to read them? Yet only too many children dislike to read true stories, because the people in them were real, and the things actually happened. Is not this very strange? And grown-ups are not much wiser. They would rather read a novel than Professor Mommsen's 'History of Rome'!How are we to explain this reluctance to read true stories? Is it because children are obliged, whether they like it or not, to learn lessons which, to be sure, are often dry and disagreeable, and history books are among their viii lessons. Now Nature, for some wise purpose probably, made most children very greatly dislike lesson books. When I was about eight years old I was always reading a book of true stories called 'The Tales of a Grandfather': no book could be more pleasant. It was in little dumpy volumes that one could carry in his pocket.

The First Edition has this very scarce and collectable old children’s illustrated book Mrs Lang Princes and Princesses for sale. This book was edited by Andrew Lang and superbly illustrated by Henry Ford and is a first edition published by Longmans and Co in 1908. The original publisher’s blue gilt decorated front board and spine are profusely illustrated in gilt by Henry Ford which also bears his initials in gilt within the design to the front board, with the back board being plain as called for. The boards are in Very Good condition being very clean but with slight marks to the gilt on the front board (barely noticeable and does not detract from the aesthetic appearance of the gilt illustration); slight fading to the spine; slight knocks to the top and bottom of the spine; slight corner knocks; and slight shelf lean. These are an extremely bright and attractive set of boards despite the relatively minor faults for this book that is over 100 years of age.

The first Christians to visit Europe and the British Isles met pagans who told tales of fairies, talking beasts, and other wonderful things. To these marvelous stories, they soon added new ones about the Christian saints. These marvelous legends and exciting true stories of Christian saints and heroes will provide many hours of delightful reading to believers and non-believers alike!

If you look out of your window in a clear dawn on the French Riviera you may, if you are fortunate, see, far away to the south, a faint mountain range hanging on the sea, and if you do see it, it is a sight so beautiful that you will never forget it. The mountain range belongs to Corsica, and under its shadow was born the most wonderful man the world has ever seen—Napoleon. In the year 1769 two babies were born in widely distant places, both destined to spend the best years of their lives in a life and death struggle with each other. The birthday of Arthur Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, was on May 1, and his home was an Irish castle; while Napoleon Buonaparte saw the light in a small house in the little town of Ajaccio, in Corsica. Napoleon’s ancestors came over from Tuscany early in the sixteenth century, and found in the island a large number of colonists like themselves, some Italian and some Greek, but all of them seeking refuge from the foreign armies which for fifty years had been trying to parcel out Italy among themselves. Though distant only a few hours' sail from its coasts, the inhabitants of the island were as different from those of the mainland as if the whole world lay between them. In Italy men were lazy, yet impulsive, lovers of beauty, of art, of literature, and of luxury; in Corsica they were gloomy, silent, watchful, living hardly, careless of everything which had not to do with their daily lives. Their hatreds were not only deep and strong, but lasting. As in old Rome, it was the rule that he 'who slew the slayer' should himself be slain, and these blood feuds never died out. No wonder that a traveller was struck with the sight of nearly the whole population wearing mourning. Almost everyone was related to the rest, and in almost every family one of its members had recently fallen a victim to avendetta—what we call a 'blood feud.' Periods of mourning were long, too, often lasting for ten years, sometimes for life. So the country was dismal to look at, with the high bare mountains shadowing all. While in Italy things moved fast, and new customs seemed best, in Corsica they seldom altered. The father was in some ways as absolute over his wife and children as in ancient Rome. He gave his orders and they were obeyed, no matter how hard they might be or how much disliked. His wife was not expected or wished to be a companion to her husband or a teacher to her children. Even if a lady by birth, like the mother of Napoleon, she worked as hard as any servant, for there was little money in Corsica, and people cultivated their ground so that they might have produce to exchange with their neighbours—olive oil for wine, chestnuts for corn, fish for garments woven by the women, from the hair of the mountain sheep or goats.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

Excerpt from The All Sorts of Stories BookThis new Story Book is of a new sort, for the tales are of many different kinds some are true, like the history of the man who met in America the other man whom he had been hanged for murdering in England. This may to any unthinking person seem all very natural, but if you think hard you will wonder how the first man got to America after being hanged in England, and how the second man, after being murdered in England, arrived in America. Neither event seems possible, yet both actually occurred. But this happened a hundred and fifty years ago, and could not happen now, when people do not hang a person for murder before they are quite certain that somebody has been murdered that the man said to have been slain is really dead. Again, the man who was hanged would, in our time, have been buried as soon as he was believed to be dead but in times not so very far from ours a murderer, when once thought dead, was suspended in iron chains in a conspicuous place, so that his crime and punishment might not be forgotten.If you read The Fairchild Family, by Mrs. Sherwood, who wrote about eighty years ago, you will find that good Mr. Fairchild took his naughty children to see a body of a murderer hanging in irons, so that they might know what to expect if they let their angry passions rise. This was what people call an object lesson,' but your dear papa cannot give you this kind of lesson now.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com